Hannibal Season 2 Embraces The Madness With New Poster And February Premiere Date

NBC shared the new teaser poster for the second season of Hannibal today, and in addition to encouraging viewers to “Embrace the Madness,” the poster also reveals the premiere date for Season 2, which is set to air Fridays beginning at the end of February.

Created/developed by Bryan Fuller, based on characters in Thomas Harris’ books, including Red Dragon, Hannibal tells the story of the start of the relationship between criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen).

The poster appears to be a play on the classic image of Hannibal Lector secured in the mask. Except in this case, instead of Mads Mikkelsen — who plays Lecter in the series — it’s criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) being restrained and looking kind of deadly with his head turned down and his eyes locked on us. There’s also the faintest hint of a smile on his lips, despite being bound by that mask and straight-jacket. Perhaps he really is embracing the madness. Or the Mads-ness, as it were… Heh.

As for the series’ February 28 return date, Friday night is a good night for dark drama on NBC, as the Peacock currently has Grimm airing at 9:00 p.m., followed by their new drama Dracula, which will have wrapped up its 10-episode run well ahead of Hannibal’s return. NBC has the 2014 Winter Olympics wedged between Dracula’s final episode on January 24 and the start of Hannibal on February 28, so we might expect to see plenty of Hannibal promotions during the Games. Hannibal's move to Friday is a shift from its first season’s Thursday night time-slot, but considering NBC’s Thursday-night comedy block hasn’t been doing the 10:00 p.m. dramas any favors in recent years, in terms of a lead-in, that’s not such a bad thing. Thursday night's a competitive night, and if there's one type of show that tends to hold up ok on Fridays, its a genre show.

The February return pushes Hannibal well into the winter season, as opposed to the spring. Season 1 debuted at the start of April and ran through June. News of the February return date, added to this poster is hopefully a good indication that NBC will be making more promotional content available for the series, as February isn’t all that far away.

Like the first season, Season 2 will consist of thirteen episodes. It would be great if NBC got the first season up on Amazon Prime or Netflix. Unfortunately, they only have the last three episodes of the first season available on their site right now. But the DVD is out, for those willing to shell out money to get caught up.